


normal's overrated anyway

by soniclipstick (veriscence)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Family, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Jim and Bones are an old married couple, M/M, Marriage Proposal, POV Bones, they just don't know it yet okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veriscence/pseuds/soniclipstick
Summary: At his thirtieth birthday party, Jim asks Bones to marry him. Bones tells him that normal people go on dates first.





	normal's overrated anyway

At his thirtieth birthday party, Jim asks Leonard to marry him.

Technically, it’s near the end of the party, after artificial daylight has been swapped out for the true night sky over Yorktown. Captain Kirk’s pride and joy has been left in a state of unravel by the Engineering officers who’d long left after their shifts ended. The crew, though happy to surprise Jim with a party, also leave the party rather early. They’re still exhausted, and most of them are on doctor’s orders to rest. Though these are the same idiots who think doctor’s orders are tips at best and tend to ignore them, it’s hard to do so when said doctor is glaring at them from the other side of the room.

They’d left a pile of presents on the coffee table. They’re mostly gag gifts — Scotty’s seemingly harmless package had resulted in an explosion of glitter at opening. But Leonard had caught the soft smile on Jim’s face when he’d opened an envelope to discover a watercolour painting from Joanna that Leonard had been keeping safe for months now, a present for her favourite man in space. Leonard, despite being her actual father, has been casually thrown aside for Jim since their first meeting on Leonard’s first shore-leave. That must have been at least six years ago now.

They’re both nursing bourbon, though Leonard’s itching for a regenerator instead to deal with Jim’s bruised face. Jim puts his tumbler down, and turns around to face Leonard. He leans against the glass, and says, “You should marry me.”

“Normal people at least go on a date before they get married,” Leonard drawls. When it comes to Jim Kirk, it’s best to simply roll with the punches.

“We’re not normal people, Bones.”

He can’t argue with that. Normal people wouldn’t haven’t spent the majority of the last seven years living out of each other’s pockets like they do. Normal people, once reaching adulthood, don’t end up sharing their beds and clothes – and on more than one annoying occasion — a toothbrush, with their best friend.

They live together — in or outside of space. They eat together, and more often than not, they fall asleep and wake up together. They have standing Friday night dinner plans and they’ve done laundry together so many times that Leonard’s not sure whose underwear he’s wearing at the moment.

Their very first Christmas at the Academy, when Winona Kirk had been two galaxies away, Leonard had dragged Jim to Atlanta. Jocelyn had felt guilty enough about the messiness of the divorce that they’d gotten to take Joanna to Leonard’s grandparent’s house for a week. Now, Jim has weekly calls with Grandma Lizzy and texts Joanna at least a few times a week. Jim is family.

So no, they aren’t exactly normal.

“How drunk are you?” Leonard asks casually. Not that it makes a difference. James T. Kirk is incapable of making personal life-changing decisions unless his blood alcohol concentration is higher than 0.150.  

“Wasn’t drunk when I bought this,” Jim tells him with a cocky grin, taking a velvet box out of his pocket. Leonard knows that face well, and the current expression is one he’s seen when Jim thinks he’s won. The fucker thinks he already knows Leonard’s answer.

But it is Jim who knows him best. Jim, who charmed Granny into giving him the family chicken soup recipe because Leonard hates replicator food when he’s sick. Jim, who gives him the best lower back massages — without him asking — when Leonard feels like the devil’s pulling at his spine. Jim knows Leonard, and if he weren’t so fond of him, it’d be the most maddening thing in the world.

And Leonard loves Jim, any idiot can see that. He loves Jim, even when he climbs into bed and jostles Leonard until he finally turns around and presses up against him. Even though he always squeezes the middle of the toothpaste tube like the fucking heathen that he is. They’re family after all. Because this is Jim, who spent three weeks in an empty apartment in Atlanta building furniture and painting the walls. This is Leonard, who had just wanted a place to crash when Joanna was visiting, and Jim, who’d cried for shame and stolen his credit card to turn it into a home. Jim, who picked the wall art and the hardwood. And Leonard, who’d gotten perfume-free detergent for the laundry room and left half his closet empty for Jim.

Jim, who’d trusted Leonard enough to tell him about Tarsus IV and Leonard, who pulled him out of the nightmares and rocked him back to sleep. Leonard, who couldn’t sleep for weeks after Khan unless he could feel Jim’s pulse under his thumb, and Jim, who’d understood and let him.

Leonard may have brought Jim back to life, but it was Jim who gave him a reason to live. By all other measures, they should have been married years ago.

“You just gonna stand there like an idiot or come and put that ring on me?”

Jim rolls his eyes, then crosses the few feet that separate them. He takes Leonard’s hand in his own, rough ones, knuckles still covered in scabs. The most beautiful hands Leonard’s ever seen. He doesn’t see it coming because he’s so focused on Jim’s hands, that as suddenly as he’s wearing an engagement ring, there are lips on his.

Leonard knows exactly how beautiful Jim is, he’s not blind. But this isn’t years of pining or drama. Leonard loves Jim, and Jim loves Leonard. This is just the way it’s meant to be. So when they kiss it’s gentle, they’re holding hands like teenagers as Jim’s chapped lips move against Leonard’s worry-bitten ones.

Jim tastes like bourbon and cake, like an early summer’s day in Atlanta, before the sun becomes unbearable. He tastes a little too satisfied, so Leonard pushes him against the glass, hand behind Jim’s head so as to soften the blow. He studies Jim’s lips with his own, then his cheek, the jut of his jaw. Jim smells like their apartment, despite the fact that they’re not even on the same planet as their apartment. Leonard presses his face into his neck, breathing in the scent of home and himself. Jim gasps softly, and his arms come around Leonard’s waist.

Jim’s always been breathtakingly beautiful. He’d never considered that he could have this. Leonard has always been a long-term relationship kind of man, and Jim had never seemed like that was what he wanted. But Jim’s arms around him are so careful, like he’s scared Leonard’s going to change his mind. As if this isn’t where they’ve been headed forever. Never mind that they hadn’t known that until now.

He doesn’t know how long they stand there, but then Jim starts laughing into Leonard’s shoulder.

“What now?”

“Uhura’s going to win the entire pot.”

“What?”

“The crew’s been placing bets on when we’d get together. Uhura’s got my thirtieth birthday.”

“Dammit, Jim! Those bastards are betting on our personal lives? And you knew?”

“Who do you think anonymously set up the online betting platform?”

Leonard groans. “You at least make any money off of this?”

Jim takes his hands in his own again, rubbing his thumb against the engagement ring. “Enough to buy that shiny new balcony furniture set you’ve been sneak-checking out online.”

Leonard barks out a laugh at that, and pulls Jim in for another kiss. It feels like the hundredth time, as if Leonard’s been doing this forever. The vibrations of Jim’s laughter on his skin and the welcome weight of the ring around his finger. The cornflower blue of Jim’s eyes and the kissable mole on the right side of Jim’s nose; they all feel overwhelmingly right. Leonard takes a good look at his future, bright and golden and filled with stars, and kisses Jim again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Star Trek fandom! I cannot believe I wrote McKirk fic! I really hope you liked it, I've never written these two before and I hope I did them justice. Thanks for reading! I'm soniclipstick on tumblr so do come and say hi!


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